As you may know the 2010 Winter Olympics are about to start here in Vancouver (opening ceremonies are in five days). I've volunteered for the games and I'm working at the Olympic Family Hotel (AKA the Westin Bayshore) in Vancouver. The executive of the IOC and other big wigs will be staying here throughout the games. I'm working as a Help Desk Manager here, so I help deal with tickets and send techs off to fix things as needed. If all goes well we won't have a lot to do, but if there are problems we could be pretty busy.

There are a couple thousand volunteers and workers assigned to this venue alone. It's quite busy here as the final touches are put on and areas are going operational. It's pretty well organized and there have been fairly few problems so far, it's amazing to think of the amount of planning and scheduling that went into getting everything ready.

I was given the volunteer uniform so I have a snazzy blue outfit with navy blue pants, two blue shirts, a blue vest, blue jacket, and blue touque. I might post a picture later if I can.

I'm sitting at my desk at the moment and I'm on my second of twelve shifts. I'm juggling those twelve shifts around my class schedule. My last shift is on March 1st so I'm going to be pretty busy this month to say the least.

I'm sitting here at my desk at work. This is not unusual, but it is the last time I'll be sitting here for eight months. I'm taking an educational leave from work and am heading back to school.

I work in the IT department of a University as a Systems Administrator and have been here for 11 and a half years. The funny thing is that I came to this university after high school and ended up dropping out in my second term. I was busy working at an internet provider at the time and was making money and learning more about computers and the internet than I was at school so I ended up dropping out. I worked at the internet provider for about six years and then got a job as a technician at the University.

I've moved up in the University, but I can't really move up any more unless I have a degree. So now I'm heading back to school to work on a degree, on Tuesday I'll be coming back to the University as a student rather than an employee. I won't finish the degree in the eight months, but I'll make a significant dent in it and then do a class at a time while I'm working.

So what does this mean to my fellow sifters? Well I probably won't be able to try to snipe the Zero Punctuation vids each week for the next while. I'm not sure how much time I'll have for sifting while I'm studying and doing the student thing and juggling family life.

I'm looking forward to the change for the next eight months, I'm hoping that it refreshes me.

In light of the end of the Beijing Olympics (and the start of the Paralympics) I came accross this amusing list of comments from the 2004 Olympics that I thought I would share. According to Snopes this list may or may not be real, but it sure is funny in any case:

Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators during
the 2004 Olympics that they would like to take back

1. Softball announcer: 'If history repeats itself, I should think we can
expect the same thing again.'

2. Dressage commentator: 'This is really a lovely horse and I speak from
personal experience since I once mounted her mother.'